| Artist: ['ramp] Album: Return Released: 21 December 2012 |   |
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Music by Stephen Parsick is of a machine-hewn darkness, roiling in a dense electronic atmosphere of doom. More difficult to know is from whence this intensity emanates. His album Return, released under the more well-known name ['ramp], includes all components of the Spacemusic musical form - technique, sound, color, nuance, phrasing - come together in service to expression. In a kind of self-communion Parsick's richly imagined soundscapes make for moving electro-drama. The 12 tracks found on Return are arranged into two distinct continuous movements. With one major sequencer work at the focal point of each section, Parsick avoids the obvious motorized pulse of his contemporaries. The rhythmic lines of blasting bass and metallic interlocking tones better conjure the approach of a leviathan than an optimized stardrive engine. As the throbbing dynamo of dancing tones stretches and develops a probing liquid synthesizer lead adds a narrative voice - which compliments the continuous transpositions and adjustments being made to Parsick's multi-layered patterns. In other places the terrain becomes so alien that the listener will give up trying to grasp something familiar and just trust the composer to lead us safely through the work. This dark music affirms Parsick as one of the bright lights of his generation. He possesses a keen sensitivity for the complex weave of afflicted feelings embedded in this musical genre. Heard separately his albums are compelling works; collectively, they are an electronic masterpiece. Like the light from distant stars, Stephen Parsick's music has existed for some time, but is only now reaching us on Earth.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 18 January 2013 | |
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